Roasted Chestnut Butter Frosting

Roasted chestnut butter frosting is the perfect topping for any Christmas cupcake and there is no open fire needed - although you may find yourself seeking one out as you eat it. The chestnut frosting is not overly nutty, and it has a mild flavor and a smooth buttercream texture.

While peanut butter has it's fans, chestnut butter is the nut butter of choice for the season. I loved it in the roasted chestnut butter frosting, but it is also great on a piece of toast or in a chestnut butter and cranberry jelly sandwich!

This post covers how to make chestnut butter and then how to make chestnut butter frosting.

To start, you'll need roasted chestnuts.

I bought my roasted chestnuts at Whole Foods. However, if you want to take the effort to roast chestnuts yourself, Kevin of Closet Cooking has a great post on how to roast chestnuts.

Next, you'll need to turn those roasted chestnuts into chestnut butter.

Making nut butter is easier than you might think. You just need a food processor. My favorite food processor to use is my mini Cuisinart. Simply grind the roasted chestnuts in your food processor and then add vegetable oil 1 tablespoon at a time and continue to process until it has the consistency of a nut butter. Since roasted chestnuts don't have much oil in them, you may need to add up to 1/4 cup of vegetable oil per cup of chestnut butter produced.

Now, you can make the roasted chestnut butter frosting.

• 1 C roasted chestnut butter
• 1 C butter
• 2 C powdered sugar

1. Place the butter and nut butter into a medium bowl and beat with an electric mixer.
2. Gradually mix in the sugar.
3. Beat for at least 3 minutes for it to get good and fluffy.

What's the cupcake under the frosting?

The cupcake under that frosting is my mulled wine Christmas cupcake! The recipe is coming soon!